The Bids and Solutions Manager will be responsible for providing professional and effective management of tenders formy clients business as well as leading the development of new solutions within the portfolio. This is an exciting new opportunity to work with the CEO and internal teams to ensure continued business success.

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Take ownership of the production of high quality, competitive tenders and proposals from PQQ to submission, for a wide range of opportunities ranging from £15k - £10+m

Manage the creation of the bid deliverables, ensuring review and governance

Maintain accurate and comprehensive internal bid documentation

Attend customer engagement sessions to help qualify and position the business

Take responsibility for standing up the wider team likely to include Solution Architect, Engineering Leads, Finance and operational Support functions

Ensure that responses/ proposals are planned, delivered and submitted in a timely and professional manner

Understanding the customers evaluation and marking criteria in complex bids to help steer the business response to ensure compliance and maximise our chances of scoring for successful selection

Lead gate reviews and develop win strategies

Ensure bids are innovative, competitive and affordable whilst maximising value

Developing solutions through insights from market research and customer buying behaviour

Defining the key features, specifications and requirements of the solution based on customer preferences

Establishing strategies for solution pricing and positioning

Managing the budgets of multi-disciplinary teams involved with solution development

Assisting with solution/ product launches and marketing campaigns

Conducting competitor research to learn more about customers’ needs

Performing profit analysis and forecasting to develop or improve solution marketing strategies

Creating project timeline and implementation schedules and manageing solution projects

Identifying and approaching potential distributors, and managing supplier deliverables in solution development

Satisfy customer requirements from a technical, commercial, regulatory and financial perspective

Compile costing models with support from the Finance team

Use techniques to evaluate the bids and bid content, driving the written quality to the highest standards to ensure win chances are maximised

Challenge solution and delivery models to drive innovation and the production of competitive, high quality tenders

Collaborate with the Enginering team to identify and assess technology partners for tenders and solutions and long term strategic partnership

Identify and manage risk at both the tender/ solution development phase and during handover to Engineering

Create and maintain a bid library of high quality material to maximize efficiency of the bid process

Liaise with subject matter experts and the Solution Architect to ensure that customer requirements are integrated

Work with all relevant groups to develop and negotiate the final contract in readiness for hand-over to the Engineering team

Coordinate the production of a Bid Summary/overview to ensure that standards, training requirements, regulatory requirements and ongoing obligations of tenders are fed back to the Head of Engineering

Perform lessons learned reviews on submitted tenders and develop on existing processes as part of continuous improvement process

In addition to the duties and responsibilities listed, the job holder is required to perform other duties assigned by their manager from time-to-time, as may be reasonably required of them.

REQUIREMENTS:

Have a minimum of 3 years bid experience in Government, Public Sector, Telco or Technology sectors

Proven experience building and leading a matrix team to deliver commercially sound complex customer solutions whilst maintaining a positive experience for customers

Proven track record of effective bid management and administration at a senior level

Demonstrable knowledge of commercial, finance and market related requirements for tenders

Have the experience to shape a major deal balancing competitor, solution, commercial and legal approaches to win

Able to lead major deal review, sign on and sign off procedures to senior stakeholders able to articulate win themes, solutions, stakeholder and commercials

Comfortable with complexity and should be able to establish and communicate this complexity across a mixed team of sales, technology, service/delivery and financial professionals

Proven experience in solution, product management or related role

Proven ability to manage and supervise multidisciplinary and cross-functional teams

Ability to create solution/ product development and marketing strategies

Ability to analyse complex data to identify market trends and customers’ behavior

Should be familiar with interpreting Schedules (e.g. Requirements, Solution, KPIs)

Exceptional consultative skills and be able to use personal authenticity to influence action and change with key stakeholders

Ability to listen but also persuasively convey opinions and recommendations

Strong analytical skills ensuring that data is used to create powerful business cases as well as track and draw insight to generate action plans to achieve objectives and course correct

Exceptional communications skills both written and verbal and be confident to present with impact and credibility

A general understanding of the technology being employed

Possess a good understanding and working knowledge of the bid lifecycle - capture, qualification, developing capture plans, winning strategies and proposal writing

Have specific working knowledge of industry standard approaches to bid management

Be experienced and adept at building and managing strong, long lasting relationships across customers, partners, suppliers and internal stakeholders

Enthusiastic and flexible, ability to find a solution to problems